1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing system and an information processing method for displaying history information acquired from an external device having executed processing instructed by a user, and a program and a storage medium for the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printers for printing images represented by image data, scanners for scanning and inputting images on original documents, and communication devices for sending image data or the like via a network, may manage history information that includes a list of previously executed operations. In particular, multifunction printers (MFPs), into which the above-mentioned printers, scanners, and communication devices are integrated, may manage history information of previously executed operations categorized for each function or for each user who has instructed execution. Referring to the history information of previously executed operations, users can confirm contents of operations previously executed or cause an operation to be re-executed using the same setting as that used in the previous execution.
Meanwhile, a plurality of MFPs may be configured to work in cooperation with each other via a network in some cases. For example, image data obtained by scanning an image from an original document with a scanner of an MFP can be stored in a memory unit included in another MFP on the network. In addition, for example, images represented by image data stored in a memory area of an MFP can be printed by a printer included in another MFP on the network. Furthermore, it is possible to acquire history information of processing executed in another MFP on the network and to display the history information on an operation unit of the MFP acquiring the history information.
In such a case, devices, in response to an execution of an operation requested by a user, may store information regarding types of the executed processing and information regarding a processing target as a processing history entry. Other devices on a network may access a device, whose history information is referred to, to acquire the history information after specifying the device. The acquired history information can be then displayed on a display unit included in each of the other devices. The other devices can re-execute the processing relating to a history information entry selected from the displayed history information (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-119956).
In addition, a device can request transmission of history information corresponding to a user among history information managed in a plurality of other devices on a network and display only the history information relating to the user after integrating the received history information and history information managed therein (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-297488).
However, the above-described conventional techniques have the following disadvantages. For example, it is necessary to request another device to send the history information to acquire the history information managed by the other device on a network. To make this request, a user is required to input information identifying the device (e.g., an IP (Internet Protocol) address) as described in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-119956, which requires some manual work. In particular, to acquire history information from a plurality of external devices, the user has to input information identifying each of the devices, which makes the history information acquiring process cumbersome and non-user-friendly.
Alternatively, it may be possible to transmit a request to all of devices connected to a network, i.e., to broadcast a request to send the history information, when requesting the external devices on the network to send history information. However, in this case, for example, if a user attempts to acquire the history information of processing previously executed by other devices on a network, the request for history information is undesirably transmitted to all devices on the network, including devices that are not relating to the user, i.e., devices that the user has never used. In particular, this disadvantage becomes more serious when many devices are connected to the network, and a network load is undesirably increased every time a user submits a request to acquire the history information.
The present invention is made in view of the above-described disadvantages. According to aspects of the present invention, an information processing system and an information processing method that allows easy acquisition of history information stored in external devices, in which a user has executed processing, without unnecessarily increasing a network load, and a program and a storage medium for the same can be provided.